Dedicated to getting to the truth of things. A Christian since 1984. (Just a Christian, without pigeon-holing into a denomination.) I like people to be free to ask their questions about Christianity and the church. I like to approach faith questions with my brain switched on. A qualified classicist and historian.
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And I don't look like James Garner. Enough about me already.

Saturday, 22 August 2015

Did Josephus really mention Jesus? (and was that quoted by Origen?)

(This replaces an earlier blog, radically so
in the light of wider academic reading. Discussion of questions of
interpolation is now in another blog here, plus a brief Appendix at the bottom of this page.)

The Jewish Antiquities (AJ), a history written by Josephus about 93AD,
contains two mentions of Jesus Christ. The first is in AJ Book 18. The other is
a passing comment in Book 20, and that is the one this blog is about.

As
Josephus was a historian in the first century AD, Jewish and not a
Christian, his mention of a Jesus who some people called Christ - and
the story that goes with it – is useful evidence. By a large margin, most modern scholars published on the subject (non-Christian and Christian scholars) take the passing comment in AJ 20:200 as authentic and plausible
evidence of several historical markers:

that Jesus existed as a Jewish man

that some people said Jesus was the
Christ (that is, the Jewish Messiah)

that Jesus had a brother called James

that James lived into the 60s of the first century, and died then

that Josephus was a contemporary of James and they both lived in Judea

that Josephus knew of his contemporary James as being the brother of Jesus

The
passing comment was known and quoted in ancient times. In particular, it is
found in the work of 3rd century writer Origen: six words about
Jesus and his brother James, verbatim as in AJ Book 20, with comments that tie
it to AJ 20.

In the
key section of AJ
20:200, the high priest Ananus is the subject, James is the object, and
Jesus Christ is in a passing comment, as follows:

“Ananus... brought before them the brother of
Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, and when
he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered
them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the
citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they
disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to
send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done
was not to be justified...”

James needed
introducing in the text, and it introduces him as the brother of Jesus who is
called Christ. Jesus is only mentioned there to identify which James this could
be. Josephus needed to use the word “Christ” in the narrative because there are
two men called Jesus in AJ 20:200-203 (it was a common name).[[1]] [[2]] Thus the “James” who is killed in the passage has
been given his distinguishing referent, and it signifies two things: he is “the
brother of Jesus called Christ”; and this Jesus is distinct from the “Jesus ben
Damneus” mentioned later in AJ 20:203.

The sense of the story in AJ 20:200

“Ananus... brought before them the brother of
Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, and when
he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered
them to be stoned.” (AJ 20:200)

Josephus
does not give the impression that he understands what offence the condemned souls were accused of. Secondly, as for who “the others” were, Josephus is as
vague about them as he is about the alleged offence of which they were accused.

The
Christian reading of the story is uncomplicated, as follows. From
time to time in first century Jerusalem, those associated with following Jesus
were suspected by agitators in Jerusalem of not conforming to Jewish religious
laws (all a bit vague just as in Josephus), and were punished for it (Acts
6:12-14; 21:27-28; Galatians 1:13-14). Coincidentally, the Christian reading is
that the Sadducees had a track record for mistreating followers of Jesus like
this in Jerusalem (Acts 4:1-2; 5:17-18), and Ananus was a Sadducee.

To
illustrate this, you can see that the language used in Luke’s Acts and Josephus
is coincidental:

“They seized Stephen and
brought him before the Sanhedrin. They produced false witnesses, who testified,
“This fellow never stops speaking against the holy place [the temple] and against
the law.”” (Acts 6:12-14)

“some Jews from the
province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and
seized him, shouting, “Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who teaches all
men everywhere against our people and our law and this place [the
temple].”” (Acts 21:27-28)

“[The high priest and
Sadducee] Ananus... assembled the Sanhedrin of judges and brought before them
the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some
others, and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers
of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.” (Josephus, AJ 20:200)

Regarding AJ
20:200, if the high priest was involved in bringing justice, then some
perceived offence against the temple is very possible, as was the case in the
other examples.

There
is a measure of coincidence between these passages which renders Josephus’
narrative intelligible, another tale of followers of Jesus hauled before
Jerusalem authorities on suspicion of challenging the status of Jewish law and
possibly the temple too. (These sorts of accusations seem to have dogged the
early church, fairly or not. In Acts, the Jerusalem church seems anxious not to
get tarred with Paul’s reputation for speaking out against the law.)

The
Christian reading presents a simple solution to the baffling nature of the text
in which Josephus seems unsure of what law was broken or who the “others” were.

What
happened next? Ananus’ actions constituted the sort of harsh policy to make
fair-minded people wonder and worry about who will be next in line for such
unjust treatment – such behaviour has to be nipped in the bud - and it brought
him down. All they had to do was show that he had convened his court unlawfully
and his position was vulnerable.

As mentioned, Josephus' passing comment - about Jesus and James being brothers and Jesus being called Christ - was a comment known and quoted in ancient times. In particular, it is found in the work of 3rd century writer Origen: six words about Jesus and his brother James, verbatim as in AJ Book 20, with comments that tie it to AJ 20.

Origen’s
Commentary
on Matthew 10:17 contains τὸν ἀδελφὸν Ἰησοῦ τοῦ λεγομένου
Χριστοῦ (“the brother of Jesus who is called Christ”) verbatim as in AJ 20:200 (in
exactly the same order and exactly the same case, same prepositions as AJ
20:200).

Here
Origen gives his fullest rendition of his account of mournful Jews, reflecting
after 70AD on the cause of the fall of Jerusalem, looking back to the death of
James. Here is the passage, and details that are similar to AJ 20:200 are in bold
italics, and words in square []
brackets are mine for clarity:

‘But James is this one whom Paul says that he saw in the
epistle to the Galatians, saying: But I did not see any of the other apostles
except James the brother of the Lord. And
in such a way among the people did this James shine for his justice that Flavius
Josephus, who wrote the Judaic Antiquities in twenty books, wishing to demonstrate the cause why
the [Jewish] people suffered such great things that even the [Jerusalem]
temple was razed down, said that these
things came to pass against them in accordance with the ire of God on account
of the things which were dared by them [Jews] against Jamesthe
brother of Jesus who is called Christ. And the wondrous thing is that,
although he did not accept our Jesus to be Christ, he yet testified that the
justice of James was not at all
small; and he says that even the people supposed they had suffered these
things on account of [injustice towards]James.’

(Note that when
Origen refers back to Paul, he uses Paul’s pious
phrase ‘the brother of the Lord’, and
when he refers back to Josephus, he uses Josephus’ non-pious phrase ‘the brother of Jesus’.

Not also that
Josephus says that what was done to James was not justified, and that ‘justice’
is the word Origen uses for James. Origen is making a thematic connection. In
the next two passages, he actually calls him by his popular title “James the
Just”.)

Origen’s
Against
Celsus 2:13 also contains τὸν ἀδελφὸν Ἰησοῦ τοῦ λεγομένου
Χριστοῦ verbatim as in AJ 20:200 (in exactly the same order and exactly the
same case, same prepositions as AJ 20:200). Here is the passage:

‘For this [siege] began while Nero was still being
king, and it lasted until the leadership of Vespasian, whose son Titus
destroyed Jerusalem, as Josephus writes, on account of [injustice
by Jews towards]James the just, the brother of Jesus who was called
Christ, but, as the truth demonstrates, [actually] on account of Jesus
the Christ of God.’

Origen’s
Against
Celsus 1:47 has a similar but slightly different phrase ὃς …
ἀδελφὸςἸησοῦ τοῦ λεγομένου Χριστοῦ (“who
was the brother of the Jesus called Christ”). Here is the passage:

‘Josephus… himself, though not believing in Jesus
as Christ, in seeking the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of
the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was
the cause of these things happening to the people, since they killed the
prophecied Christ, even says, being unwillingly not far from the truth, that
these things befell the Jews as vengeance for [injustice towards] James the just, who
was a brother of Jesus who is called Christ, since they killed him who was
most just.’

Origen
being theological, not historical

Origen
has only an interest in giving the destruction of Jerusalem a theological
meaning, for which he uses the death of James as a device. With this
device, he attributes theological views to Josephus which sets
Josephus up as a straw man which Origen can
knock down in order to give his own true meaning of the fall of Jerusalem, that
it is a consequence of the death of Christ.

Origen
being argumentative

A repeated pattern is that
Origen is taking a non-believer to task for writing that Jesus is ‘called
Christ’ as distinct from being known as Christ (the Christian view). This
obviously makes sense if Origen has read a text to which he takes exception, in
which Jesus is referred to as ‘called Christ’. Nothing else but that has
provoked such a reaction out of him. Notice how he continually corrects
it:

Commentary on Matthew 10.17: ‘… Flavius Josephus, … said that … James the
brother of Jesus who is called Christ… he did not accept our Jesus
to be Christ’

Against Celsus 1.47: ‘Josephus… says… James the just, who was a brother of
Jesus who is called Christ … how is it not more reasonable to say
that it happened on account of Jesus the Christ?’

Against Celsus 2.13: ‘For this began … as Josephus writes, on account of
James the just, the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, but,
as the truth demonstrates, on account of Jesus the Christ of
God.’

This repeated pattern of
correcting his literary adversary is incomprehensible of course unless Origen
has access to a text in which an unbeliever writes “called Christ”. The only
candidate for this is AJ 20:200.

Comparing AJ 20:200 and Origen

Comparing Origen and
Josephus AJ 20:200, we see similarities:

six matching words about
James being “the brother of the Jesus called Christ”;

Note that Josephus wrote
“the brother of Jesus”, not the pious Christian phrase “the brother of the
Lord”. Origen follows Josephus in this regard when quoting him.

a mention of
the killing of James;

the killing is by Jews;

there is some injustice
in his killing;

a Jerusalem context;

Origen is taking
Josephus to task over what he regards as statements of unbelief on the latter’s
part in the words “called Christ”;

an explicit interest in
the cause of the fall of Jerusalem in other Josephus texts (but not this one),
and in these texts of Origen;

Josephus mentions this
being followed by attacks on Jewish people; while Origen mentions it in reflecting
on the end of the war, the destruction of Jerusalem.

Surprisingly,
given this level of similarity, look carefully and you will notice that Origen never
actually tells the sad tale of the death of James; he only mentions that he was
killed. It is merely a device to talk about events and views of 70AD and later,
i.e. on the destruction of Jerusalem, a topic that much occupied him. Origen is
quite descriptive of AD70: “the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the
temple... the desolation of Jerusalem...”

To summarise the respective narratives of Josephus
and Origen:

Josephus’ story is set in the mid-60s,
that of the death of James: it comes during the telling of the rise and
fall of the Sadducee, the younger Ananus, who opportunistically had James and
“some others” accused of being “breakers of the law” and, after a dubious
legal process, James and the others are stoned. But fair-minded citizens
disliked what had been done, and went over Ananus’ head to Albinus, to
force the former to behave more justly, which led to King Agrippa doing
more than that and actually stripping Ananus of the high priesthood. After
that, Albinus came to Jerusalem and attacked the sicarii (rebels) who
fought back; and, Josephus says, “This was the beginning of greater
calamities” as the sicarii afflicted “the whole country”.

On the other hand, Origen tells a later
narrative, principally about the 70AD destruction of the city, and
indicates that sometime between the 70s and the end of the century (after
the fall of Jerusalem and before the death of Josephus), some Jews were
reflecting on the past with the theme that the killing had been the cause
of trouble for the country, including the destruction of the Temple, the
fall of Jerusalem. Origen says that one of the Jews with this
retrospective view is Josephus.

The
big difference

Origen
is right that Josephus explicitly seeks the cause of the fall of Jerusalem. But
the cause Origen cites – as if Josephus and other Jews blamed it on the killing
of James - is foreign to Josephus. So how on earth did Origen come to attribute
such views to Josephus?

Origen
‘riffs’ off Josephus

This turns on how Origen deals with Josephus across the broader
sweep of his dealings with Josephus’ books; not merely these isolated examples
that we relate to AJ 20:200. Origen takes surprising liberties with Josephus to
put forward his own views on why Jerusalem and the temple fell.

A
survey of all of Origen’s mentions of Josephus, by the scholar Miguzaki, is
helpful.[[4]]
This reveals, for example, what Origen does when commenting on Lamentations 4:14. Origen
quotes Josephus’ Jewish War 6:299-300, but omits words to suit his own
purposes, in making the fall of the temple about Jesus Christ. He cites the
call, "Now, let us leave this place" heard by templepriests.

Firstly, as Origen takes this as the angels'
voices announcing their departure from the doomed temple, he omits Josephus’
phrase καὶ κτυπουas it is not appropriate to the angels’
departure.

Secondly, Origen shortens Josephus’ text
"into the inner court of the Temple" to "into the Temple", to
suit his belief that the temple’s doom is related to the coming of Jesus.

Again, commenting on Lamentations 4:19 Origen says that,
"Josephus reports that even the mountains did not save those who were
trying to escape”, but where does Josephus say this?

Miguzaki notes, “when
the subject of the destruction of the Temple is closely related to his
theological interpretation, he [Origen] cites a considerable amount from
Josephus' work, modifying the passage to fit his interpretation.” It is entirely possible that Origen is carrying on
in just the same vein when using Josephus’ mention of the death of James as a
platform for his personal views on the fall of Jerusalem.

Origen’s
treatment of AJ 20:200 is consistent with Origen’s deliberate and somewhat
cavalier treatment of Josephus’ work elsewhere, not least a convenient platform
for creative anti-semitism.Origen was
theologically creative. In popular parlance, he was riffing off Josephus, to say what he wants to say, but attributing
it to Josephus.

Origen’s
sources: 1 – the nation and the temple suffers for the killing

But
where did Origen get his ideas from? Do they have anything at all to do with
Josephus? As it happens, yes, they do. And not just from AJ 20:200.

A
scholar called Baras draws attention to AJ
11 where the remarks of Josephus could have inspired Origen’s direction
about the fall of the temple following the death of another Jesus by the hand of his brother, another high priest. Baras notes that in AJ 11:297-305, ’Josephus recounts the
death of Jeshua (i.e. Jesus…) at the hand of his brother, Johanan (Joannes) the
high priest. Josephus ... says that God punished the Jews by enslaving them and
by desecrating the Temple.’[[5]]

Set in bullet points, AJ 11:297-305 reads as follows:

‘Joannes had a brother named Jesus;

and Bagoses, whose friend he was, promised to obtain the high
priesthood for him [Jesus]. With this assurance, therefore,

Jesus quarrelled with Joannes in the Temple and

provoked his brother so far that in his anger he [Joannes] killed
him [Jesus].

The Deity, however, was not indifferent to it, and it was for this
reason that

Note similarities in the material to hand.[7] It is
not difficult to see how Origen riffing off AJ 11:297-305 and AJ 20:200 could
produce the following in his Commentary on Matthew 10:17:

'Flavius Josephus…wishing to demonstrate the cause why

the people suffered such
great things that

even the temple was
razed down,

said that these things
came to pass against them

in accordance with the
ire of God on account of the things

which were dared by them
against James

the brother of Jesus who
is called Christ.'

And Against Celsus 1:47:

If, therefore, he says
that the things surrounding the desolation of Jerusalem

befell the Jews…

it happened on account
of Jesus…

In light of this evidence, it is likely that Origen was riffing off AJ 20:200 after the fashion
of AJ 11:297-305.It is curious that in his surviving works
(much is lost) Origen nowhere mentions AJ
11:297-305, a passage that would have interested him greatly, but what he
writes here is so like it. Origen’s
sources: 2 - the phrase “James the Just”Origen
uses the phrase ‘James the Just’, and this is not from Josephus. A few writers
before Origen used it:

The Gospel of Thomas (Origen
happens to name a ‘Gospel of Thomas’ too)

[7] Feldman suggests that Origen could have modelled his comments after AJ 18:119, that Jews thought that the destruction visited upon the army of Herod Antipas was God's punishment for Herod's execution of John the Baptist, but this lacks the startling resonances in AJ 11:297-305.L. H. Feldman, "Introduction" in Josephus, Judaism and Christianity, 56.

Appendix: why this is not a deliberate Christian interpolation

This passage in AJ 20:200 is not
the work of a Christian interpolator. It completely lacks the interpolator’s
trademark of adding a positive Christian touch to stories of the faithful unjustly suffering. In the passage, by
the end, James is unjustly dead, Jesus is mentioned in passing, and nothing
positive is said about either of them.

In stark contrast, look again at
two biblical stories of the suffering faithful mentioned above.

“They seized Stephen and brought him
before the Sanhedrin. They produced false witnesses, who testified, “This
fellow never stops speaking against the holy place [the temple] and against
the law.”” (Acts 6:12-14)

“some Jews from the province of Asia saw
Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him,
shouting, “Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who teaches all men
everywhere against our people and our law and this
place.”” (Acts 21:27-28)

What particularly marks these out
as two Christian passages is what happens next. They have the sort of positive
Christian material that is totally absent from the Josephus passage.

Here is the first, from Acts 6,
again, this time with the material that follows it:

“They seized Stephen and brought
him before the Sanhedrin.They produced false
witnesses, who testified, “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy
place and against the law... All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin
looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an
angel. (Acts 6:12-15)

Similarly,
here is the second passage from Acts 21 with what follows:

“some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They
stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, “Fellow Israelites, help us! This is
the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and our law and this
place...

“Paul answered, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of
no ordinary city. Please let me speak to the people.”After
receiving the commander’s permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to
the crowd. When they were all silent, he said to them in Aramaic: “Brothers
and fathers, listen now to my defense.”When they heard him speak to them
in Aramaic, they became very quiet. [And Paul goes on to tell the crowd
of his supernatural encounter with Jesus, including this famous bit:]“About
noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed
around me. I fell to the ground and
heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you
persecute me?’‘Who are you,
Lord?’ I asked. ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you
are persecuting,’ he replied.” (Acts
21:27-28; 39-40; 22:1-2; 6-9)

So the
Christian narratives go on to momentous scenes favourable to Christians. The
Josephus passage completely lacks that Christian touch. There is more evidence
of the difference that a Christian touch makes. This comes with another version
of the death of James, this time by Christian author Hegesippus:

“And they began to stone him [James]:
for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned, and kneeled down, and said:
"I beseech Thee, Lord God our Father, forgive them; for they know not what
they do." And, while they were thus stoning him to death, one of the
priests, the sons of Rechab, the son of Rechabim, to whom testimony is borne by
Jeremiah the prophet, began to cry aloud, saying: "Cease, what do ye? The
just man is praying for us." But one among them, one of the fullers, took
the staff with which he was accustomed to wring out the garments he dyed, and hurled it at the head of
the just man. And so he suffered martyrdom; and they buried him on the spot,
and the pillar erected to his memory still remains, close by the temple. This
man was a true witness to both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ.” (Hegesippus,
quoted in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History)

That passage ends on a positive
Christian note. The complete lack of a Christian ending to the Josephus passage
is really telling. Here is the Josephus passage again:

“Ananus...
brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was
James, and some others, and when he had formed an accusation against them as
breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed
the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the
breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king
[Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for
that what he had already done was not to be justified...” (AJ 20:200)

If a Christian interpolator were responsible for this passage, he would characteristically have rounded off the story of the faithful suffering with something positive about James
or Jesus (or both of them). But the author hasn’t done so. James is dead, Jesus gets a passing mention, and nothing positive is said about either of them, despite this tale of suffering and all its potential for making it into a Christian message. In it, the locals are rather more bothered about procedural law. It is what Josephus wanted to say. The passage is free from the tell-tale hand of Christian interpolation.

4 comments:

It should be noted that the term "James the Just" is also in a text known by Origen, Clement of Alexandria and Hegesippus, Gospel according to the Hebrews ("Iacobo lusto", quoted by Jerome, Illustrious Men, 2). Origen quotes this Gospel in Commentaries on John 1:3 and Homilies on Jeremiah (15:4) and notably Comm. Matt. 15:14. Also Hegesippus knew a Hebrew Gospel according to Eusebius (Eusebius, Hist eccl. 4.22.8). Could this be a source for the term in Origen?

Or the Gospel of Thomas could be. So many possibilities! I don't think it's possible to say with any certainty, but Clement's direct relationship with Origen adds weight to that possibility. Thanks for visiting the blog!